


Blue-bearded Husband

by Lillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian/pseuds/Lillian
Summary: Peter is Tony Stark’s youngest and newest bride.





	Blue-bearded Husband

**Author's Note:**

> An edited and finished version of my Bluebeard fic from tumblr.

Peter is Tony Stark’s youngest and newest bride.

Peter himself can’t wonder enough at his luck.

Peter’s friends and acquaintances, the press and random people on the street can’t wonder enough at his stupidity.

The thing is, they don’t know Tony like Peter does. True, Tony’s previous spouses all disappeared, but that wasn’t Tony’s doing. Tony's worked tirelessly to make the world a better place, he's been kind and generous to a fault in his actions, even if he sometimes was a little blunt with his jokes. He was just so… human, that Peter knew with a deep, instinctual, iron-clad conviction that Tony couldn’t be a serial spouse murderer. No way would the guy who spat out May’s horrendous date loaf into Peter’s paper basket and then tried on Peter’s goggles like a kid snooping into his brother’s things, no way could that guy have done something so wrong to the people he swore to love for life.

But others didn’t see things that way. When Peter broke the news that he was about to marry the guy yellow rags had gleefully christened "Bluebeard" (after wife number three - Natasha, a ballet dancer - disappeared as a result of apparently driving her yacht into the worst sea storm in a decade) May went bananas and then moved on to every other fruit. She started googling intervention hotlines and then explained to Peter, at length, why it was so messed up that she actually found one. Apparently the desire to marry Tony Stark as a form of elaborate self-sabotage was a common phenomenon.

Ned just acted like Peter would disappear if Ned so much as turned his back, and MJ begged Peter to make a will in her favor before he tied the knot, just in case he didn’t have time afterwards. Once he and Tony went public, random people kept stopping Peter on the street to ask him not to throw away his life. Even Colonel Rhodes turned up at Peter’s door once, looking terribly haunted, and told Peter that _bad luck_ followed Tony’s lovers and that perhaps it would be a better idea to forego marriage this once.

Peter loved the idea of marrying Tony, but he would have been happy just being his boyfriend. His very much exclusive, publicly acknowledged, live-in boyfriend. Those were Peter's conditions. It was Tony who insisted on marriage. Peter suspected it was because to Tony, love was synonymous to commitment and he couldn’t really be in love (or feel love) without proclaiming the highest level of commitment possible. There was also the question of an heir to SI. Not a pressing question since the new, stable strain of Extremis ensured Tony would be around for a long, long time, but Peter knew it weighted on Tony anyway. And while Tony went to some pains to indicate otherwise, it was also a question of trust. Peter wanted Tony to feel how much Peter loved and trusted him, and on some level Tony needed the same. So it was a no brainer. Peter said yes. In fact, he was gathering courage to pop the question himself before Tony did.

Two days before the wedding ceremony Tony described as restrained and modest and Peter considered an outrageous extravagance, a journalist somehow managed to get into Peter’s hotel room. Peter had no idea how, unless he'd climbed the wall. The journalist’s name was Eddie Brock, and he was ever so worried about Peter, or so he said. Peter promptly showed him the door.

“I talked with Maximoff, right before her private jet went down on the return trip from visiting her brother in Sokovia. She said Stark had given her the passkey to a room in Stark tower he said contained his best-guarded secrets. He told her that if she looked into that room, they could never be together. He didn’t want to lose her, but he couldn’t lie to her, so he was giving her the choice, he said. She was torn. She wanted to look but didn’t want to lose Stark. She was like you, young, star-struck. But I guess she must have given into the temptation because she scheduled that trip to her home country really abruptly. And then she was dead,” Eddie Brock says, very quietly, halfway through the door an increasingly distraught Peter is holding open for him. “Think about this, Parker.”

In an hour, Peter’s not Parker anymore and he doesn’t have to think about a crazy muckraker’s conspiracy theories if he doesn’t want to.

His honeymoon is magical, and Tony’s so gentle and attentive and relaxed that Peter’s about to burst at the seams with happiness and pride because he made Tony happy.

When they return Peter officially moves into the Tower where he spends 4 days a week - alternating with the MIT campus - and everything is perfect. Stupid gossip-mongers start betting pools on how long Peter’s going to last, upsetting May, worrying Ned, and amusing MJ, but Peter doesn’t pay any attention. Tony loves him, and the certainty of that is an armor that insulates Peter from all this breathless, voyeuristic fascination with their lives.

Their first anniversary comes up, and the Daily Bugle proclaims their relief that Peter’s already lasted longer than wife number 1 - Maya, a biologist, shot by an unknown intruder in her and Tony’s home, and husband number 4 - Bruce, a physicist who suffered a fatal accident during an experiment with gamma radiation. Peter tries not to get angry.

For Tony's sake, Peter plans an anniversary celebration. Friday helps him set it up. A night in, Tony’s favorite wine, shockingly expensive nibbles. Ms. Potts’ solemn vow that she won’t contact Tony for work.

It’s a great night, only Tony seems a little absent-minded. At the end, after they’ve both drunk too much wine and are cuddling out on the helicopter pad, Tony hugs Peter closer and says, “I have something for you, Pete.”

He pulls out a beautiful, silver filigree key chain. It’s not Peter's style but it’s so lovely he’s about to launch into a string of sincere thanks, when Tony pulls the cap off and Peter realizes the key chain conceals a flash drive.

“This is a passkey to a room that contains my worst secrets,” Tony explains tonelessly, while Peter feels the blood freeze in his veins. “I don’t want to lose you but I can’t keep lying to you, so I leave the choice in your hands…”

Peter has no idea what to do. He goes through life like a sleepwalker. He sleeps in a guest room for two nights, freaking out, wondering whether he should go out, buy a burner phone and call Brock, or whether this is just a coincidence and he’s being paranoid. Tony leaves him to it, treating Peter like a precious glass object that might break if handled roughly, giving Peter space. Tony seems… resigned and deeply sad. He flies out for a business trip, giving Peter a burning, confusing, chaste kiss on the mouth, things between them still unresolved.

Peter goes for a sleepover with Ned, “accidentally” throwing out his phone through the car’s side window. The car he chose is a 1920s Bentley, since it’s one of the few ones that don’t have Friday integrated.

Ned is the sympathetic and level-headed friend Peter expected him to be.

“Holy shit, I told you this was a giant mistake, we all told you he was a murderous psycho, oh my God oh my God, Peter, what are we gonna do? Are you sure he isn’t listening to everything we say through one of your tooth fillings?!” Ned says as soon as Peter’s apprised him of the situation.

“I don’t have tooth fillings, Spider-man, remember?” Peter mumbles out with his head on his folded arms. “And if he bugged anything it’s my wedding ring.”

“YOU’RE STILL WEARING THAT?!!”

Finally, Ned agrees to help Peter break into the secret room of secretiveness and death without Friday, and by extension, Tony, being any the wiser.

While Ned mutters profanity and tries to dissect Peter’s anniversary present, Peter puts salt in the wound by googling his predecessors. He never allowed himself to do that before because he knew he’d feel inadequate.

He wasn’t wrong. Doctor Hansen and Doctor Banner were brilliant. Ms. Romanoff was described as the greatest artist the world of ballet had seen since Plisetskaya, which is apparently the ballet equivalent of Einstein. Thor was a freaking alien god who, judging by his many shirtless pics, really looked divine. Christine Everhart was a tireless investigative journalist and Wanda Maximoff was beautiful, powerful and had survived more than Peter could imagine, even if she was only a couple of years older than him.

If not for an accidental spider bite Peter would be no one.

“I think I got it,” Ned says. “The only problem is, do I think I got it because I got it, or because I’m stupid enough to think I hacked Tony Stark at his best. This is not the baby monitor protocol on your first suit, this is on a whole new level. It’s practically in the stratosphere.”

“I have to know, Ned. It’s okay, I’ll go in without you.”

“No way. Just, for the record, if Tony Stark murders me too, I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’, okay.”

But in the end, Peter convinces Ned to stay behind. He spends two hours in Tony’s secret room. When he emerges there are tears running down his cheeks and Ned is nowhere to be seen. 

Tony’s waiting for Peter, lounging against the wall across the forbidden door, whiskey in hand.

“Hey, kid,” he greets, fake-cheerful. “I kind of knew we’d end up here. You’re too curious for your own good.”

Peter knows he's the one who initiates the embrace, practically falls into Tony's arms, but Tony catches him and gathers him close, so it's a tie.

"How could you ever imagine you'd lose me over this?" Peter whispers, incredulous and overwhelmed but at the same time brimming with love and tenderness for Tony. He wants to protect Tony from everything that would hurt him, inside and out. He wants to make Tony believe once and for all that he's worthy of love, of Peter's love. Because he is.

"I ruin and lose everyone," Tony confesses, drinking Peter in with his eyes. "This can't be you. You're so... unspoiled. I can't believe you're real, let alone that you want to be with who I really am. The last thing I want is to disappoint you, but I fear I can't live up to who you think I am. But I'll try, I'll do better than my best if you give me the chance."

Peter wants to protest that it's not a question of chances, that Tony already has Peter and nothing could remove Peter from Tony's side, but Tony silences him with a kiss. He carries Peter to their marital bed in his arms, and as he lays Peter down on it and unwraps him slowly, prepares him thoroughly, Peter can only think of this as their second wedding. A tiny, tiny part of Peter doubted Tony before, there's nothing of that now.

As Tony presses inside him, so carefully there's not a trace of discomfort, Peter thinks of his predecessors. Dr. Hansen, killed by a vengeful competitor before Tony's eyes. Miss Everhart, who kept Tony out of the loop of her investigations to disastrous results. Agent Romanoff, a defected spy whose past finally caught up with her. Dr. Banner, whose unthinkable and uncontrollable transformation made him shun Tony and stage his own death. Thor, a friend and teammate who needed legal Earth citizenship, and who disappeared back into space, weighted down by the guilt caused by the destruction of his home planet in his absence. Wanda, who'd suppressed the memory of a terrible ordeal for which she'd wrongfully blamed Tony, and who'd asked Tony for two things - never to see him again, and an undisturbed life with her brother - and received both at the price of further damage to Tony's reputation.

Peter pities all of them, and he's sorry for the pain Tony had to endure because he convinced himself it was his fault that he couldn't save them. But he can never be sorry that he's the one who is here with Tony instead of them.

Peter wraps around Tony, chants his love and adoration, his paradoxical, insatiable satisfaction as Tony claims and takes his own pleasure in Peter's body. He wants Tony to come, he wants Tony to still deep inside so Peter can relish him there, he wants to feel full and used _by Tony_, he wants to feel like Tony's most beloved, most cherished, most needed lover.

Tony gives him all of that.


End file.
